It has been really interesting for me to see how much the trend of print mockups has been on the internet as a way to showcase your work. Not so long ago when I first was adding portfolio items to behance I was using just screenshots of my files and now I take the time (which is getting quicker and quicker) to make mockup images. They really do tell the story better and are instantly recognisable. It is not until I see the two side-by-side that I realise this is a trend that will not be going away and this is something I am very happy with.

It certainly makes a difference when showing spreads of a book. Previously I felt the need to show the spine and edges otherwise there is no context.

I really do not think the difference is as profound with the cover but certainly, it is more obvious that this is a book cover and not a flyer or something else.But when showing something really quite big, like a billboard, the mockups are simply wonderful because it is so much easier to understand the scale in this context.

Last year I was asked by a musician to do a photo shoot and to create a stylised vector drawing of him for the cover of his upcoming CD. Long story short: the three versions of the illustration never saw the light of day until now.

Since the design remains my intellectual property I can show you the stylised vector of the unnamed musician:

Three versions of the stylised vector ready for the CD cover

For what it is worth: I chose the bottom of the three versions for the cover and placed all the required text in the white space and it looked amazing.

When I was studying at university there was a to-do list that went on forever. Since I was studying computer-based art and design I have some useful skills up my sleeve and I spent heaps of time on my computer. It made sense to have a digital to-do list. I managed to “dig up” a few of these website wallpapers I made to combat the list:

website wallpaper example

website wallpaper example 2

These website wallpapers comprised of:

whatever image I was fascinated with for the week or I made my own to fascinate myself for the next week

links to programs most often used

links to exact files stored on my hard drive (saved so much time)

step by step to-do list for every class

whichever typeface fascinated me the most at the time (the two examples I found use Brushed)

I updated these every other day to cross out things and made a whole new one most weekends. Sometimes I started with a table for each day sometimes it was grouped into classes.

These website wall papers were a great way to continue developing my HTML website making skill set and by using Window’s active desktop setting I made something that was easier to navigate then my operating system.

I felt like making something with my hands. I remember making these woollen things as a child – on a much smaller scale with paddle pop sticks. To begin I went into my backyard to find a couple of good sized sticks. Then I went through my mum’s wool collection and found rements of wool to use. Then I started securing the sticks and looping the wool around the sticks, over and over again until I finished. I quickly made an information graphic (using Kassandra Designs Signature Typeface I have designed) to explain what I did.

How to make the woollen thing.

I have taken plenty of photographs of the final product. Here is two – one is how I suggest it is displayed (stuck in the ground) and a close up of the centre.

The Woollen ... Thing.

I used purples and blues and a row of black between the two. It looks great and I kept my hands busy for a few hours while I made it.

I spent the weekend 26th of March through to the 28th of March at the ____________ ___________ _______ Woodfordia site. There are way to many words to describe Woodfordia and I simply say experience it for yourself and you tell me how to describe it.

At the Woodford Organisers Group conference referred to as “The Big Chat” I got to:

Day 1

camp wherever I wanted to on the Woodfordia site (Woodford Folk Festival grounds)

meet my supervisor in my next role:

Sign maker for Dreaming Festival job offer

I will be making signs for the Dreaming Festival in June 11-13th. The role also involves placing the signs around the festival. The department head of Signology was happy to have me on board as I am a graphic designer and have typography, map making, computer based design (printing and laminating) and painting skills. As a true leader eager to induct an enthusastic new team member I was told about the new printer and laminator, Bubbles and Bobo respectfully; shown where the signs are stored; how to brave the cold Woodfordia climate during winter and a basic overview of operations before the festival (set up).

Welcomed to the Woodford Organisers Conference by the Queensland Folk Federation President, with whom I just met through my department head not 1 hour before he took the stage.

Alan Glover and S Sorrensen made the whole room vibrate with laughter the whole time they were on stage. I don’t remember laughing so loudly for so long in a long time.

I was oustide and “this bloke” comes over and says:
“Hey you lot, get inside now the band is about to start.
Come on get inside the band starts in five minutes.
Come on you lot, stop smoking and get inside you don’t want to miss the band”. . . .
*Chuckles to himself*
“How often does the lead singer of the band usher in the crowd?”

– John Schumann

John Schumann, Hugh McDonald and Alex Black performed some amazing music acoustically.

The group stayed up late catching up over some drinks in a relaxed setting surrounded with trees and amazing down to earth loving friendly people.

DAY 2

Breakfast.

The General Manager gave an overview of the finance for 2009-10 Woodford Folk Festival.

I learnt how the overall enterprise is structured, makes money and spends money.

The Executive Director and a Foresight Practitioner discussed the myth of the “500 Year Plan”.

We had a tea break and moved onto separate more specific workshops. There was a choice of three.

I met the Children’s Festival programmer who held a workshop called “A million ways to save a dollar”. We discussed ways that each department of the festival could save a small amount of money by being more efficient.

I stayed in the Organisers Club Bar for the Setup Department Head session and it is about the issues faced during the set up – I will be part of the set up crew and want to go into a department head position at some point in the future.

We had a lunch break.

I had a message passed onto me about where one of my favourite Woodfordians was cooking up fish he caught the day before. It was beautifully cooked. The company up at the undisclosed location was worth meeting and missing out on the Speed Meet session where we only had a few minutes to meet each other. We bonded over an hour.

The next workshop I attended was entitled “Getting involved as a new organiser – are you up for being a part of the WOG?” It was interesting how the Volunteers and Department Heads manager facilitated the start of this workshop. We sat in a circle, introduced ourselves (first name and last name) and briefly summarise our involvement in QFF so far and what we want to do now and in the future. When it got to introducing myself I said “I am Kassandra with a k.” then I am cut off and told I do not need a last name as Kassandra with a K is enough. We were told to find where we felt we belonged and be mentored by a department head and get into a key offsider position. When the department head wants to step down you are already trained for the role.

“Many hands make light work” was the motto we heard. 8 people packed sand into 1000 recycled white boxes and placed a tea light on top. This was for Earth Hour where we all ate our two-course Annual Organisers Dinner under candle light.

We all got to chill out and bond some more after a full day of workshops.

I met one of my new favourite bands: A French Butler Called Smith outside the “Duck” I explained I saw them live in Maleny and we bonded over the badness of the poster design for the event (I later remade it – Kassandra Bowers Poster Remake Design). They seemed pretty excited to hear I am a graphic designer.

The candles were lit and we were dressed to impress (dreadlocks and suits is a very good look) as we ate our delicious meal. On the table plan my name was misspelt. I got out my pen and changed it quickly while noone was looking. When everyone was sitting at the table and we were all meeting each other they all said they noticed I changed the spelling of my name.

Since I was sitting next to the Foresight Practitioner I asked about a quote I heard countless times at university: “we are training you for jobs that do not exist yet”. Basically I am trained to encounter change as an given and be adaptable to it. I now think it has to do with the transdispiclinary learning that took place at university.

John Sullivan Federal MP introduced John Schumann as the Guest Speaker at the dinner. John explained the whole story about the song “Nineteen”.

The Annual Organisers Awards took place.

A French Butler Smith took the stage, warmed up the dance floor with a tango and then had us all dancing our feet off. At the end of their set when everyone was asking for an encore I reasoned them into it by saying “but come on, the instruments are here and sound checked, the lights are going, your on stage and you have us all dancing here” we got not one but two encores – we were truely spoilt. I did not let them leave without giving them my contact card and having a much longer chat to at least one group member – the saxaphone player.

Since we would all not catch up again for about a month we all braced ourselves for a long night of just living and taking it as it happens. It somewhat drizzled on us, the circle got smaller, the bar closed and we were told not to waste all the wine (don’t let it go in the bin it was purchased for you to consume). The next thing I remembered it was 6am, the sun was appearing and there was only three of us standing. I crawled into my tent for a couple of hours of sleep.

Day Three

Most people were a little worse for wear today but we perservered.

We kickstarted the day with breakfast and a talk about the aspiration campaign.

There was a brief update about department heads.

There was a discussion about new software developed to facilitate all the issues arised during events.

We were told about the large storm approaching the site and were instructed to do the group photo and go home early if you wanted to. The group photo becomes history as it is archieved as proof that a group of people organised and ran all the festivals that QFF does – The Dreaming, The Planting and Woodford Folk Festival.

I went home after spending 20 minutes with my department head learning about the department.

It was great I can’t wait until I get to see my family at Woodfordia again soon.

The above URL is a blog I have set up to document the process for this university class. This would mean that I am back at university now (final semester finally) so I wont have as much free time to design stuff to put up on this blog.

A1 Major Assessment for ADN214 (Visual Identity and Exhibition Design) which focuses on either photography or digital illustration to represent the concept: technology’s affect on society/the human condition.

"Proliferation of Digital Typeface in the Urban Environment"

INSPIRATION

This all came about after seeing and photographing this particular scene:

The inspiration for the urban typography poster

I was on a Sunshine Coast train and I could not help but notice how many signs were in such a small place. All are from digital origins too. This made me think about digital typography and its affect on society. Then I started to research into the various areas:

“Design is everywhere. But if you live in a crowded urban environment, you are absolutely surrounded by it. Much of it may go unnoticed. Just paying attention to the ubiquitous samples of graphic design — for example posters, banners, billboards, etc. — Could fill every waking moment of your day.”web reference

“Digital photography is to analogue photography what photography was to painting in the 1840’s. It is a process in which artists seek to establish the new medium’s definitions while acknowledging the
aesthetic dominance of an established art form.”
Halick, D. 1990. The Transcendental Machine? Leonardo. Vol 23. No 4. Pergamon Press, Great Britain.

This may seem like an insane amount of research but the overall presentation that I showed to the class on the 22nd of April 2009. The presentation was constructed in InDesign and exported as a PDF it ended up being 47 pages long. Here is the full list of references used:

This is only some of the letters that I used. There was 398 letters all up and also another 98 spaces.

aligning the letters with align top

This is how I constructed the grid – its all with illustrators built in snap and align functions.

FINAL PRODUCT AND THE ART GALLERY INFORMATION

The actual text says:

This is a ransom. This is a ransom for your time. This is a ransom for your attention. This is a ransom to witness the proliferation of digital typefaces in the urban environment. This is a ransom for all designers to take into account we are the cause of this proliferation. This is a ransom for all people to reflect on how the proliferation of digital typefaces affects us as a society where we overlook our own environment. This is a ransom to change your actions starting right now. – Kassandra Bowers 2009

When it was in the art gallery this is the card that was next to it:

REGENERATE art exhibition name plate

The artist statement was written by the senior lecturer and at her request I did not change it. Artist Statement:

“Language through type envelops us in our urban environment, and yet typography is to language what maps are to geography, scores are to music and algebra is to mathematics. Typography underpins our every day life from when we wake up to our fist glimpse of an alarm clock, through to the tuning of a radio to the brands of shampoo, toothpaste and cereal. We are bombarded by typographic messages all vying for our attention and all before we have walked out the door. My work explores new and aging typefaces, made by mechanical means, photographed from the plethora of signs seen within our urban environment. In my image, I have used type as moveable singular letters to make words and sentences, similarly to a ransom note made from magazines or newspapers.
My work asks the viewer to become aware of the language of signs that are embedded in our
modern western culture.”

The art piece was in the University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery from the 11th June 2009 – 10th July 2009.
It has also been selected to travel with the exhibition to the Gympie Art Gallery – Opening 20 October 2009.

I have also sent this to Semi-Permanent to hopefully be included in their 2009 Book 2.